April 15 is sneaking up fast. So listen up everybody, file your taxes!

For all of us, filing is the law and our patriotic duty. But if you are a low-income worker (especially if you have children in your home), filing your taxes just might get you out of poverty.

You will likely be eligible for the earned income tax credit (EITC), which provides a cash supplement to low-income workers.

A single parent with one child with a full-time, $7.25 per hour minimum wage job earns $15,080 per year, $430 below the poverty level. This family’s EITC credit will be $5,236, which moves the family up to 135 percent of poverty.

A mom and dad with three children who earned $40,000 this year will receive an EITC of $1,503. The average EITC in Kentucky for families who received it last year was $2,200.

The EITC keeps six million Americans out of poverty. Unlike many efforts to help the poor, the EITC has had strong bipartisan support through the years. It was first proposed by Milton Friedman, an economist who called it a “negative income tax.”

When Congress passed and President Gerald Ford signed the EITC bill into law in 1975, it limited the credit to those who had earned income, a requirement that continues to this day. President Ronald Reagan, as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, called expanding the EITC “a sweeping victory for fairness, and perhaps the biggest anti-poverty program in our history.”

The EITC has proved to be so effective in encouraging people to work and in reducing poverty that more than half of the states have adopted their own EITC.

For some reason not everyone eligible for the EITC files taxes. Beshear estimates that 20 percent of eligible Kentucky families fail to claim the EITC. In Northern Kentucky this year, more than 5,000 families will miss this opportunity.

Even if you only earned $1,000 for the year if you have a child in your custody, your EITC will be $312.

Maybe you are afraid to file because you have not filed in the last few years. You may file your 2012 federal taxes now, file your back year returns, and if you were qualified, get three retroactive years of the EITC.

If your family income is below $50,000 per year, thanks to United Way of Greater Cincinnati, there are many places in Northern Kentucky where you can get free assistance in preparing your tax returns. Find these at www.makeworkpay.com or by calling 211.

If you are eligible for the EITC, do not deprive your family. It will be good for them and our entire community if you have more to spend.

Richard Cullison is executive director of Legal Aid of the Bluegrass in Covington. Reach him at cullison65@gmail.com.